American Slavery

STREAMING VIDEO
2 Class Sessions

It is considered America’s original sin. The enslavement of Africans and African Americans, which was prevalent in the American colonies and the United States from 1619 to 1865, is commonly believed to be the origin of many of America’s current social ills.

Unfortunately, though many invoke the history of slavery as an explanation for the state of American race relations and the condition of African Americans, very few know anything about it except what they’ve seen in Hollywood movies or heard from folklore.

In this 2-part live interactive course, we examine the beginning of chattel slavery in Virginia, its expansion throughout the colonies, the culture created by American slaves, the abolitionist movement, the economics of “the peculiar institution,” and the racial ideology that emerged to justify it.

Instructors: Thaddeus Russell received his PhD in History from Columbia University and taught American history at Columbia, Barnard College, The New School for Social Research, and Occidental College. He is the author of A Renegade History of the United States. Adam Rothman is Professor of History at Georgetown University. He is the author of Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South and Beyond Freedom's Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery

To access this streaming video course, you may purchase it individually for $65 or join Unregistered Academy.